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Finding a new home for a dog doesn’t usually require the intervention of the chief of police.

But the adoption of a giant schnauzer named Barkley got such attention recently.

About a week after Jodi Lewis adopted Barkley and her two children had grown attached to their new pet, Savannah-Chatham police Chief Willie Lovett ordered the dog to be picked up from her Effingham County home and handed over to Diane Abolt, Chatham County Manager Russ Abolt’s wife and president of the animal adoption group Friends of Animal Control Team Savannah, or F.A.C.T.S.

The 1-year-old dog was found April 11 tied to a tree at a playground at Ashley Midtown Apartments.

The intake note says “very friendly.”

A photo shows the fluffy pooch, black with a white bib, looking up dolefully as he licks his nose.

The dog had no identification and was put on the required five-day hold to allow his owner to come forward.

Two days after that hold was up, Lewis, who is the Savannah-Chatham County Animal Control Shelter supervisor, indicated she wanted to adopt the animal.

“Dog to be adopted by J. Lewis,” a record dated April 19 states. “Dog’s name is Barkley.”

She took the dog home the next day. But then the family got word they couldn’t keep him. Lewis declined to comment, but her husband, Tim Lewis, said his wife’s job was threatened if she didn’t hand over the schnauzer.

“She gets a call saying the chief of police is saying she had to bring the dog back because the county manager’s wife said she wanted it,” Tim Lewis said.

A police email written April 24 spells out Tim Lewis’ position.

“I spoke with Jodi this afternoon to check on the status of the dog,” Capt. Terry Shoop wrote to Maj. Julie Tolbert, both with Special Operations. “She stated that her husband is NOT willing to return the dog and what is being asked is unlawful in that the dog was obtained legally.”

A memo in Barkley’s record that same day further confirms the chain of events:

“Per direct order from Chief Lovett relayed through Major Tolbert and Captain Shoop this dog was ordered to be returned from its adopter Jodi Lewis at the request of Diane Abolt.

“(Animal Control Officer) Sutherin was advised to dispatch an Animal Control Officer to the location to retrieve the dog. Permission was granted from Captain Shoop for the Animal Control Unit to leave the county for this call.”

The Lewis family lives in Eden. Jodi Lewis parks her work vehicle at the county line every day, said her mother, Wanda Hoover, who lives just four doors down from her daughter.

“She can’t even drive her work truck home across the line,” Hoover said. “But they can send it out across the line to pick up a dog because somebody else wanted it and it’s already been adopted by you?”

Lovett, who confirmed that Lewis could have been terminated if she failed to obey his order, said he sided with Abolt because Animal Control employees told him she had placed a hold on the animal before Lewis did. He would have intervened even if there was no connection to the county manager, he said.

“When you have a volunteer and an employee at odds, I think, rightfully, I should get involved,” Lovett said.

Police spokesman Julian Miller explained the situation in writing on April 30 as “a case where two people differed on what happened,” where both “said they followed procedures.”

“The volunteer had documented what she had done and the chief had to serve as the judge. Given the information before him he made the decision that the volunteer should have gotten the dog,” he wrote, explaining the procedure includes a five-day wait after which an interested person can label the pen to alert others of their intentions.

“After the five-day period, they then have 24 hours to take the animal, but sometimes this can be extended because of extenuating circumstances,” Miller wrote.

Lovett said he learned after he made the decision that Abolt was sick the day her hold expired.

Better written procedures, which Lovett promised in November after the facility was cited by state regulators for poor record-keeping and which are still being drafted, will prevent these misunderstandings in the future, he said.

However, Lewis has already documented a protocol for holding animals. On May 1, the same day Abolt picked up the dog, Lewis re-sent an April 9 update that detailed how long animals would be held for rescue groups that had expressed interest in them: “If an animal is not picked up within the 24-hour clearance (on our end) it then becomes available for the next rescue organization and/or adopter,” she wrote.

Diane Abolt was among those copied on the original email.

An open records request produced no written indication that Abolt had put a hold on the dog. State regulators recently put her rescue organization, F.A.C.T.S., under a quarantine for disease control and a stop order for its failure to keep adequate records. Click here to read more on this story

Abolt spoke briefly to the Savannah Morning about the F.A.C.T.S. quarantine, but after the interview was abruptly cut off she did not return a phone call or reply to an email requesting further comment about that situation and about Barkley.

Click here to read the full story on the suspension of Abolt's animal shelter.

Abolt describes F.A.C.T.S. as a “nonprofit founded to help the unwanted, abused and abandoned animals of Animal Control.”

But Barkley wasn’t unwanted, abused or abandoned when he was whisked away from Lewis’ home.

In fact, kindergartener Breanna Lewis, 6, was helping to bathe the dog when an Animal Control officer arrived to take him away, Wanda Hoover said. The little girl loves animals, said the grandmother.

“She told her Papa, ‘The dog policeman came and took my doggie and took him away forever,’” Hoover said.

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SMN should do a story telling us where Barkley is presently. I and a lot of others would like to know. Is he at the pound, is he at F. A. C. T. S. which is under suspension? Lets keep this matter in the public eye and lets demand that some heads roll.